Windows 7 Extended Security Updates will double in price each year

Three years of updates will be available.

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Windows 7's free support period ends on January 14, 2020. Microsoft is offering three years of support updates for the operating system on a paid basis with a new program called Extended Security Updates (ESU). Unlike previous after-life support options for Windows, which were offered as part of separately negotiated support contracts, the Windows 7 ESU updates will be available to any volume license customer, regardless of size or sales channel.

Pricing for this support has now leaked to Mary Jo Foley. For organizations already subscribing to Windows Enterprise, the first year of updates will cost an additional $25 per device. This doubles to $50 for the second year and $100 for the third year. Organizations can't skip a year, either; previous years must be paid for to obtain the year two and year three support. For companies sticking with Windows 7 Pro instead of subscribing to Windows Enterprise, the first year will cost $50 per device and will double each subsequent year to $100 and then $200.

There's no minimum purchase for the ESU subscriptions, so companies can buy as few as they need. It's not clear if there will be any volume discounts for larger deployments still stuck with the legacy operating system.

Microsoft will no doubt hope this pricing serves as an incentive for organizations to switch to using Windows Virtual Desktop for their Windows 7 systems. These cloud-hosted virtual machines will receive the Windows 7 ESU updates at no extra cost beyond the basic license, plus the cost of the virtual machine they run on.

Cloud-hosted VMs... Designed for zero on-prem overhead (keep your IT shop mean and lean), hosted hardware maintenance/support, and immediate access loss for non-payment of invoice term agreements from the host provider.

Not my IT shop's cup of tea, but i can see where it works for some companies.

We will continue to maintain our own VM environment where we have full control of the hardware, software, and networking.

Time to switch to Macs, especially the new Mac Mini for businesses with desktops running Windows 7.

Curious what use case Windows 7 offers you that windows 10 doesn't that MacOS does?If its the update prompt youre worried about you may want to stay away from MacOS. Its on my other monitor right now, and appears daily until I reboot.

Either way if youre using windows 7 I do suggest upgrading to a Mac or modern PC, as youll notice many modern features and optimizations youre missing out on with a legacy system. Accurate file transfer times are a nice one that MS finally got right.

Good. Maybe this will encourage companies to finally start upgrading to Win10.

Unfortunately for me, we have 2,500 computers to upgrade in less than a year. And a department of just 7 people to do it. We are doing beginning the SCCM rollout right now trying to get all the pieces in place to begin this upgrade. And that isn't counting all the other projects that need to get done this year too.

Time to switch to Macs, especially the new Mac Mini for businesses with desktops running Windows 7.

Curious what use case Windows 7 offers you that windows 10 doesn't that MacOS does?If its the update prompt youre worried about you may want to stay away from MacOS. Its on my other monitor right now, and appears daily until I reboot.

Either way if youre using windows 7 I do suggest upgrading to a Mac or modern PC, as youll notice many modern features and optimizations youre missing out on with a legacy system. Accurate file transfer times are a nice one that MS finally got right.

Though you end up trading one annoyance for another one. For accurate file transfer times in Window 10 you get the added feature of a comically inept search bar. You should still upgrade though

Time to switch to Macs, especially the new Mac Mini for businesses with desktops running Windows 7.

Curious what use case Windows 7 offers you that windows 10 doesn't that MacOS does?If its the update prompt youre worried about you may want to stay away from MacOS. Its on my other monitor right now, and appears daily until I reboot.

Either way if youre using windows 7 I do suggest upgrading to a Mac or modern PC, as youll notice many modern features and optimizations youre missing out on with a legacy system. Accurate file transfer times are a nice one that MS finally got right.

Though you trade accurate file transfer times in Window 10 for a comically inept search bar. You should still upgrade though

Good. Maybe this will encourage companies to finally start upgrading to Win10.

Unfortunately for me, we have 2,500 computers to upgrade in less than a year. And a department of just 7 people to do it. We are doing beginning the SCCM rollout right now trying to get all the pieces in place to begin this upgrade. And that isn't counting all the other projects that need to get done this year too.

Windows 10 has been out for three and a half years, Windows 8 has been out for six and a half years, it's not like this snuck up on you.

Time to switch to Macs, especially the new Mac Mini for businesses with desktops running Windows 7.

So sure switch to Mac Mini's. But how does that even help your situation where you're going to still say run windows 7. It's not like Windows 7 is breaking because of hardware. You still have to pay money if you want software updates.

Time to switch to Macs, especially the new Mac Mini for businesses with desktops running Windows 7.

Curious what use case Windows 7 offers you that windows 10 doesn't that MacOS does?If its the update prompt youre worried about you may want to stay away from MacOS. Its on my other monitor right now, and appears daily until I reboot.

Either way if youre using windows 7 I do suggest upgrading to a Mac or modern PC, as youll notice many modern features and optimizations youre missing out on with a legacy system. Accurate file transfer times are a nice one that MS finally got right.

Though you trade accurate file transfer times in Window 10 for a comically inept search bar. You should still upgrade though

I didnt even know windows 7 had a search bar?

Windows key then type, that's worked since XP at least, Windows 10's current braindead search notwithstanding.

Good. Maybe this will encourage companies to finally start upgrading to Win10.

Unfortunately for me, we have 2,500 computers to upgrade in less than a year. And a department of just 7 people to do it. We are doing beginning the SCCM rollout right now trying to get all the pieces in place to begin this upgrade. And that isn't counting all the other projects that need to get done this year too.

Windows 10 has been out for three and a half years, Windows 8 has been out for six and a half years, it's not like this snuck up on you.

My shop is about 50/50 Windows 7/10

It's not like IT is incapable of deploying out -- but they're usually blocked by management -- then blamed when the guillotine finally drops and CEO/CIO say "we need to be 100% windows 10 YESTERDAY" Story as old as time.

Good. Maybe this will encourage companies to finally start upgrading to Win10.

Unfortunately for me, we have 2,500 computers to upgrade in less than a year. And a department of just 7 people to do it. We are doing beginning the SCCM rollout right now trying to get all the pieces in place to begin this upgrade. And that isn't counting all the other projects that need to get done this year too.

Windows 10 has been out for three and a half years, Windows 8 has been out for six and a half years, it's not like this snuck up on you.

Indeed it did not sneak up on us. I've been saying the sky has been falling for the last two and a half years. Soon as I heard about Microsoft and Intel cutting support for Win7 drivers on new CPUs. IT Leadership kept ignoring the warnings. They only greenlighted sending Win10 devices to end users last month.

Time to switch to Macs, especially the new Mac Mini for businesses with desktops running Windows 7.

Those businesses cannot even switch to Windows 10, let alone Macs. They probably have a solution that's only certified for Windows 7. For example, pharmaceuticals need to go through several months of certification process. Similar for some government agencies, nuclear reactor sites, and so on.

Good. Maybe this will encourage companies to finally start upgrading to Win10.

Unfortunately for me, we have 2,500 computers to upgrade in less than a year. And a department of just 7 people to do it. We are doing beginning the SCCM rollout right now trying to get all the pieces in place to begin this upgrade. And that isn't counting all the other projects that need to get done this year too.

Windows 10 has been out for three and a half years, Windows 8 has been out for six and a half years, it's not like this snuck up on you.

My shop is about 50/50 Windows 7/10

It's not like IT is incapable of deploying out -- but they're usually blocked by management -- then blamed when the guillotine finally drops and CEO/CIO say "we need to be 100% windows 10 YESTERDAY" Story as old as time.

Same. Our mix is about 40/60 with Windows 7 being the 60. We are slowly rolling out Windows 10 machines but there are huge issues with software compatibility, waiting on vendors, fighting with different department management and multitudes of other components. Rolling out a new OS is no joke unless you service one single Department and they all use the exact same software and have the exact same needs. Hell we have certain specialized equipment still operating on offline Windows XP machines because that's the only compatibility.

There are several things I dislike about Windows 10, but the two absolute deal breakers are still forced reboots without permission (potentially losing work) and inability to turn off telemetry in consumer versions.

It confounds me that MS doesn't let users have control over those 2 things.

Good. Maybe this will encourage companies to finally start upgrading to Win10.

Unfortunately for me, we have 2,500 computers to upgrade in less than a year. And a department of just 7 people to do it. We are doing beginning the SCCM rollout right now trying to get all the pieces in place to begin this upgrade. And that isn't counting all the other projects that need to get done this year too.

Windows 10 has been out for three and a half years, Windows 8 has been out for six and a half years, it's not like this snuck up on you.

Good. Maybe this will encourage companies to finally start upgrading to Win10.

Unfortunately for me, we have 2,500 computers to upgrade in less than a year. And a department of just 7 people to do it. We are doing beginning the SCCM rollout right now trying to get all the pieces in place to begin this upgrade. And that isn't counting all the other projects that need to get done this year too.

Windows 10 has been out for three and a half years, Windows 8 has been out for six and a half years, it's not like this snuck up on you.

For three and a half years I've disliked the direction of Windows 10. Time will pass. And Microsoft has committed to a direction I dislike more with each iteration. This translates into how much pain will I tolerate before the discomfort of moving machines within my control to another platform is less painful.

The support of older versions extended the stay in the Windows environment. We're increasingly coming to the day that becomes no longer viable.

Depending on the cost of new development and the number of machines that need to be maintained on Windows 7, one might wonder how long this arrangement will last. Some proprietary software can cost tens of thousands of dollars to reproduce for a new OS (especially hitting productivity for testing and tweaks). If it's mission-critical (or even mission supporting), it'd be cheaper to run it on 7 indefinitely (or until the computer craps out - assuming keys will no longer be authorized) than upgrading to something else.

After all, paying a little now to put off paying a lot now is a pretty big thing in business. It's geared toward Enterprise (even a doubling in price, the productivity hit may merit paying a shit-ton to keep it going), so I don't see this working for most home users for more than a couple of years.

Given that Windows 7 is still ALMOST half of the Microsoft OS's out there, it'll be interesting to see how fast adoption of Win 10 takes place over the next few years. I won't make any predictions there.

So when Microsoft finally no longer releases bugfixes for Windows 7, it will be 14 years old. Dang. That's a crazy long support period for a particular version of a consumer operating system.

Didnt windows xp still roll out stuff for major contracts including Gov support after eol?

Really its eol*

They sold 3 years of extra patches for XP Pro to volume licensing customers just like they are for W7. IIRC they were much more expensive though, with year 1 $100/machine and ramping up from there.

XP Zombie cash-register edition (aka XP POS 2009), is still being patched through April of this year. It's the last XP variant to get patches; and AFAIK there's no pay more for extra years option available for it.

Still use 7 on an old Mac as it’s all it’s allowed to load. i at least don’t have to see that home screen (The metro thing.)

Have people come to accept that UI?

I see this complaint all the time, and honestly, I don't understand the hangup. They brought back a version of the start menu while also maintaining fullscreen start, giving everybody a choice, so what's the problem? Aesthetics? My opinion isn't worth any more than yours, but I think Vista/7 looks dated as hell, and it was never very tasteful. I prefer a simplified look, and sometimes it's very convenient to just poke the screen with my finger.

That seems fair. People knew long in advance about the end of life so if you want us to go to the massive pain in the butt of continuing timely support of a dead OS then someone needs to pay for it. It's a service charge.

Time to switch to Macs, especially the new Mac Mini for businesses with desktops running Windows 7.

Those businesses cannot even switch to Windows 10, let alone Macs. They probably have a solution that's only certified for Windows 7. For example, pharmaceuticals need to go through several months of certification process. Similar for some government agencies, nuclear reactor sites, and so on.

Time to switch to Macs, especially the new Mac Mini for businesses with desktops running Windows 7.

Curious what use case Windows 7 offers you that windows 10 doesn't that MacOS does?If its the update prompt youre worried about you may want to stay away from MacOS. Its on my other monitor right now, and appears daily until I reboot.

Either way if youre using windows 7 I do suggest upgrading to a Mac or modern PC, as youll notice many modern features and optimizations youre missing out on with a legacy system. Accurate file transfer times are a nice one that MS finally got right.

Though you trade accurate file transfer times in Window 10 for a comically inept search bar. You should still upgrade though

I didnt even know windows 7 had a search bar?

Windows key then type, that's worked since XP at least, Windows 10's current braindead search notwithstanding.

Weird, when I press the Windows key and then type, it finds the thing I'm looking for.

Good. Maybe this will encourage companies to finally start upgrading to Win10.

Unfortunately for me, we have 2,500 computers to upgrade in less than a year. And a department of just 7 people to do it. We are doing beginning the SCCM rollout right now trying to get all the pieces in place to begin this upgrade. And that isn't counting all the other projects that need to get done this year too.

Windows 10 has been out for three and a half years, Windows 8 has been out for six and a half years, it's not like this snuck up on you.

For three and a half years I've disliked the direction of Windows 10. Time will pass. And Microsoft has committed to a direction I dislike more with each iteration. This translates into how much pain will I tolerate before the discomfort of moving machines within my control to another platform is less painful.

The support of older versions extended the stay in the Windows environment. We're increasingly coming to the day that becomes no longer viable.

And then your boss says to upgrade the site to Windows 10 or you're fired and HR has 100 resumes sitting in a file for your replacement.

Still use 7 on an old Mac as it’s all it’s allowed to load. i at least don’t have to see that home screen (The metro thing.)

Have people come to accept that UI?

I see this complaint all the time, and honestly, I don't understand the hangup. They brought back a version of the start menu while also maintaining fullscreen start, giving everybody a choice, so what's the problem? Aesthetics? My opinion isn't worth any more than yours, but I think Vista/7 looks dated as hell, and it was never very tasteful. I prefer a simplified look, and sometimes it's very convenient to just poke the screen with my finger.

I dunno, I like my wall of tiles, it's organized the way I want and is much easier to navigate than a list of tiny words and tinier icons.